Weekly Review

On Thursday, Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, announced that the G7 would be held at the Trump National Doral Golf Club in Florida, argued that this would not be a violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution, and emphasized that the Doral was “far and away, far and away, the best facility to host this conference”; Mulvaney also stated that the United States withheld aid to Ukraine in exchange for an investigation of the Democrats and the D.N.C. server during the 2016 election.¹ Following widespread criticism, the president, who had earlier nominated the author of The Illuminati Handbook to a federal education board, announced that his administration would begin looking for a new location for the G7, and on Sunday, Mulvaney argued that there was no quid pro quo with Ukraine.^{2 3 4 5} In Santa Monica, California, a man in a MAGA hat violated his parole by spraying bear repellant on anti-Trump protesters, and at a town hall in Ontario, protesters wearing blackface demonstrated against Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau.^{6 7} Trudeau, who appeared in a made-for-TV movie about World War I as a soldier who delivers the line, “The core commander said he would not be surprised if I were prime minister someday,” won reelection while his party lost its majority.^{8 9} Venezuela—where more than 500 people were disappeared by the police in 2017—and Brazil—where more than 140 journalists were threatened or physically attacked for covering the country’s presidential election—won seats on the U.N. Human Rights Council.^{10 11 12}

Donald Trump dismissed Turkey’s attacks on Syrian territory held by Kurds, saying, “It’s not between Turkey and the United States, like a lot of stupid people would like us to—would like you to believe”; later, a letter Trump wrote to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which threatened the destruction of Turkey’s economy if the country did not reach a deal with the Syrian Democratic Forces, was made public.^{13 14} In Ankara, Vice President Mike Pence negotiated a five-day ceasefire with Erdogan that would allow the Syrian Democratic Forces and civilians to safely withdraw from northeastern Syria.¹⁵ On Saturday, as both sides accused the other of violating the peace, Erdogan threatened to “start where we left off and continue to crush the terrorists’ heads” if the S.D.F. hadn’t withdrawn by Tuesday evening.¹⁶ The leader of South Sudan’s opposition, who had fled the country on foot in 2016 after a power-sharing agreement collapsed, asked for a three-month extension for creating a new coalition government; the deadline was not extended.¹⁷ Nationwide protests in Lebanon were triggered after the government proposed a tax on WhatsApp messages.¹⁸ Chief Executive Carrie Lam and the chief of the Hong Kong police visited the Kowloon Mosque and apologized to Muslim leaders after a water cannon sprayed the religious site and bystanders while police targeted pro-democracy protesters.¹⁹ The first person awarded the title of royal consort in Thailand had her title removed for trying to “elevate herself to the same state as the queen” and “disloyalty.”²⁰

A man in Salt Lake City was charged with stalking, burglary, and forgery after he broke into a home and changed the locks on the doors after the owner refused to sell it to him for $90,000.²¹ A Colorado woman was arrested for attempting to mail three fetuses from the 1920s to the United Kingdom in a package labeled “school teaching aids and T-shirts.”²² In Oklahoma, a man who had pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine with the intention to distribute had his 15-year sentence dismissed after it was discovered that the white powder he was carrying when he was arrested was powdered milk, and in Illinois, a man whose name is tattooed on his neck was charged with obstructing justice after giving a fake name to the police.^{23 24} A security guard at a high school was fired after he told a student to stop calling him the N-word, and an off-duty police officer was put on administrative leave after he pulled a gun on a teenage boy who was skateboarding.^{25 26} The ninth person sentenced to prison in the Operation Varsity Blues case, a jewelry-business owner who had paid $15,000 for her son’s ACT score and falsely claimed that he was of African-American and Latinx descent, was given three weeks in prison.²⁷ A cat that had been used to smuggle drugs into a Russian prison and that was considered evidence in a subsequent trial ran away after its cage was opened and a group of dogs entered.²⁸ In Bagley, Iowa, a family’s basement was flooded with nearly five inches of animal blood.²⁹—Violet Lucca